


Underneath Ashes Lies Skin and Bone and Everything He Hates

by kaleidoscopeheart



Category: Eclipse - Stephenie Meyer, New Moon - Stephenie Meyer, Twilight - Stephenie Meyer
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-09-20
Updated: 2010-09-20
Packaged: 2017-10-12 01:28:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 598
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/119273
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kaleidoscopeheart/pseuds/kaleidoscopeheart
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jacob has fought hard to change Bella's way of thinking, he's loved her as hard as he can, and he's now realizing that he's fighting a losing battle – that one day will become her night forever and he can't stick around to watch her give away her humanity.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Underneath Ashes Lies Skin and Bone and Everything He Hates

**Author's Note:**

> I am not a Jacob/Bella shipper and sometimes not Jacob's greatest fan at all, but I felt a sort of familiarity and a modicum of comfort when writing this. As hard as I thought this would be, it was actually quite easy to close my eyes and put myself in his paws. (There may or may not already be a mix in the works for accompaniment to this fic.)
> 
> Also, I do not own anything associated with Stephanie Meyer or the Twilight saga. I am just writing this small piece of fiction as a means of challenging myself to being open-minded and also for fun. I make no claim to these characters or the sub sequential plot or narrative that belongs exclusively to Stephanie Meyer. I am also not profiting from this piece of written fiction.

Paw prints fade in the far off distance; it's a long while before he lets himself get a breath. The cracks in his heart splinter and it takes him a minute to register that the loud broken wailing is coming from his own mouth as he puts even more distance between his heart and the pain that he feels. When he finally does stop, he doesn't know or care where he is or how far he's run. He just wants to put as much distance between him and the emptiness he feels.

His warm humanity gives way to the lone wolf that he's now become and he lets the transformation take over, telling himself that he'll never let himself feel again that it's much better to be numb than it is to carry the weight of this heartache around. Sometimes he thinks he wears the love he carries for her like a burden and other days he regrets feeling that way. He regrets that his persuasions weren't enough to make her want to live out the rest of her days in sunlight where it's warm and she could be happy, free, and have a normal life full of possibilities that will soon become foreign to her.

He tells himself, that if she won't mourn for the life that she's giving up, he'll do it for the both of them. That's why, in the dead of night he fashions two sticks in the shape of a cross and binds them together with a piece of beaded leather, sticking it in the ground. It's meant to resemble a final resting place, because after all she will be dead soon any way. It's not healthy and he knows this, but neither is what she wants either.

His scars run deep, as he sits vigil over the small cross he's made night after night, refusing to go back and not being able to move forward. He can feel the winter chill setting in around the edges of his heart, as the golden warmth he once possessed slowly fades and leaves in its place a bitter chill of nothing.

In the dark if he's quiet and still enough, he can sometimes hear her promises of always being there, of loving him, and swearing to god and back that she's his best friend no matter what. But, it's all lies and illusions to him with the morning sunrise, he knows he's just using band aids to cover bullet holes that he has no way of ever healing over. He howls to know that soon, she will be living a lifetime of never being able to truly appreciate the beauty and wonder in the morning sunrise, because the twilight of night will replace all the warmth she had a chance to experience.

He'll live out the rest of his days and nights, wondering what he did or couldn't do, to make her understand the simple beauty in her own humanity. To him, all that's left of her has burned and turned to ash, where once she was skin and bones full of warmth and life and heartbeats of breath.

Jacob knows the death of her, will be the mortal undoing of him. The hour, the minute, even down to the last second. He knows that once her choice has been carried out she will cease to no longer exist in his human world and that's why it's beginning to hurt a little less to give into his true nature and let himself become the nomad wolf roaming anywhere that carries him far away from her.


End file.
